Merge pull request #1606 from chriszimmerman/elixir-docs

Receive do documentation for Elixir

1 files changed, 9 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/elixir.html.markdown b/elixir.html.markdown
index c8599838..eedeb227 100644
--- a/elixir.html.markdown
+++ b/elixir.html.markdown
@@ -369,6 +369,13 @@ spawn(f) #=> #PID<0.40.0>
 # messages to the process. To do message passing we use the `send` operator.
 # For all of this to be useful we need to be able to receive messages. This is
 # achieved with the `receive` mechanism:
+
+# The `receive do` block is used to listen for messages and process
+# them when they are received. A `receive do` block will only
+# process one received message. In order to process multiple
+# messages, a function with a `receive do` block must recursively
+# call itself to get into the `receive do` block again.
+
 defmodule Geometry do
   def area_loop do
     receive do
@@ -384,6 +391,8 @@ end
 
 # Compile the module and create a process that evaluates `area_loop` in the shell
 pid = spawn(fn -> Geometry.area_loop() end) #=> #PID<0.40.0>
+# Alternatively
+pid = spawn(Geometry, :area_loop, [])
 
 # Send a message to `pid` that will match a pattern in the receive statement
 send pid, {:rectangle, 2, 3}